PAINTSVILLE—Charles Dollarhide, a 28-year-old resident of Van Lear,
says he was getting “more and more nervous” about his after-midnight
job at Super-America convenience store on Star Fire Hill because he was
alone and vulnerable and that sometimes people would come into the store
and, in his opinion, “just look around as if they were casing the
place.” He says he reported his feelings and suspicions to his bosses
and requested that an additional person work with him at night “but
got turned down,” he said. Dollarhide says that he became very suspicious
of one particular person who often came into the store “around two
in the morning” and says “I knew that he intended to rob the
place.”
Fearing for his safety, Dollarhide, carried a pistol to work with him
on the night of October 18 last year and, he says, “it sure is a
good thing I did so. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be here to talk
to you about it.”
According to a lawsuit filed for Dollarhide by local lawyer, John Kirk,
Dollarhide was behind the counter placing items on a shelf when he turned
around to see a gunman “pointing his pistol right at my head.”
Fearing he would be shot, he says he fell to the floor and rolled while
getting his own gun, a .32, from his pocket. Dollarhide says that the
gunman—later identified as Burl Blankenship from Auxier—fired
several shots at him, but missed. Although Blankenship missed, Dollarhide
did not. “I hit him two times in the head,” Dollarhide said.
Blankenship was later taken to a hospital in critical condition. After
an investigation, no criminal charges were filed against Dollarhide. “It
was self-defense,” he said, “and all the cops and everyone
else said so.” Fifteen months later, Blankenship remains alive but disabled.
“Having stopped an armed robbery and prevented a probable murder
to boot, some might suspect that Charles Dollarhide would have become
a hero, at least to his employer,” Kirk said.
Not so.
“Because I violated a company policy, I was fired,” Dollarhide
said. He also said that he has been unable to get unemployment benefits
and “now that I have a ‘bad record’ nobody else will
hire me.”
Several months after he was fired, Dollarhide filed a $5 million lawsuit
against Super-America and its parent company, Ashland Oil, claiming, in
essence, that the company placed him in “an unsafe work environment”
and that the company’s policy of “denying someone placed in
an unsafe work environment the right to carry protection was an unreasonable
restraint of his Fourth Amendment rights to bear a weapon.”
There had been a considerable amount of “street buzz” about
the upcoming trial and, according to one Paintsville lawyer this writer
talked with, “all the local lawyers were going to watch this trial.
John is a lawyer that people like to watch try cases,” he said,
“and this one seemed especially interesting. I wished it had been
tried. I would have liked to see what the jury would have done.”
The parties reached settlement two days before trial for an undisclosed
amount. The lawyer—who did not wish to be named—told me that
he did not know the amount of settlement but that “the word”
was that “the case settled for half of what John sued for.”
The suit demanded $5 million.
John Kirk, Charles Dollarhide’s attorney, confirmed that the case
had been settled but would not reveal the terms of the settlement. “I
can only say that the case is settled and that it is over. For privacy
and confidentiality reasons I cannot tell you the amounts agreed to. I
can say, though, that justice has been done.”